SCRAPWORTHY LIVES: A COGNITIVE SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A MODERN NARRATIVE FORM STEPHANIE R. MEDLEY-RATH. Under the Direction of Ralph LaRossa

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1 SCRAPWORTHY LIVES: A COGNITIVE SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A MODERN NARRATIVE FORM by STEPHANIE R. MEDLEY-RATH Under the Direction of Ralph LaRossa ABSTRACT Over the past 20 years, scrapbooking has become immensely popular in America. This dissertation is the study of scrapworthy lives, that is, how lives become structured by scrapbooking and how people show others that their own life and the lives of their loves ones are valued or scrapworthy. I conducted in-depth interviews with 38 scrapbookers, 11 scrapbook industry workers, and 10 family and friends of scrapbookers. I also used photo-elicitation interviewing techniques with both the scrapbookers and the family members and friends of 10 scrapbookers to examine a selection of scrapbook pages the respondent had completed. I used grounded theory methods to analyze my data, providing a more thorough understanding of scrapbooking.

2 Scrapbooks are a site where people socially construct a narrative of their life. Through scrapbooking, scrapbookers do gender, family, race, ethnicity, and religion. Stratification within the larger society can be seen within the scrapbooking thought community. Moreover, through scrapbooking, one can demonstrate their membership in other thought communities (e.g., motherhood). Though a scrapbooker is able to demonstrate their gender, family status, race, ethnicity, and religion through scrapbooking, the hobby is done primarily for the scrapbooker and not for others. Scrapbooking is a leisure activity, though some may consider it as a form of work. Scrapbookers are a thought community in their own right and an excellent site to explore Zerubavel s (1997) six cognitive acts (i.e., perceiving, classifying, reckoning time, attending, assigning meaning, and remembering). In particular, scrapbookers come to classify nearly everything (including people, things, time, and space) in the world around them as either scrapworthy or not. Scrapbooks are a modern narrative form though versions of scrapbooks have been around for centuries. Scrapbooks are memorials about everyday life. The content of scrapbooks is what is left out of the typical history book but is considered just as memorable by the individual scrapbooker. Scrapbookers are storytellers. These stories could just as easily be passed down orally or recorded on blogs and some scrapbooks combine elements of oral histories and blogs. Ultimately, scrapbooks are memorials about the scrapbooker. INDEX WORDS: Scrapbook, Cognitive sociology, Doing gender, Doing family, Narrative, Leisure

3 SCRAPWORTHY LIVES: A COGNITIVE SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A MODERN NARRATIVE FORM by STEPHANIE R. MEDLEY-RATH A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2010

4 Copyright by Stephanie R. Medley-Rath 2010

5 SCRAPWORTHY LIVES: A COGNITIVE SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A MODERN NARRATIVE FORM by STEPHANIE R. MEDLEY-RATH Committee Chair: Ralph LaRossa Committee: Wendy Simonds Adia Harvey Wingfield Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University December 2010

6 DEDICATION For Rachel

7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have had a lot of support throughout the dissertation process. I thank my mom and dad, Kay and Mike Medley, for always supporting me throughout my academic training. I thank my mom and husband, Rob for providing childcare and entertainment to my daughter, Rachel so I could conduct, transcribe, and analyze interviews and also so I could write my dissertation. I thank my dad for providing childcare so that I could actually defend my dissertation. I also thank my husband for his support throughout my schooling. He has been a part of my life since before I chose sociology as a major and even moved across the country with me when I decided to attend graduate school. He now knows more about sociology and scrapbooking than he ever thought he would. I am thankful for the owner of a local scrapbook store for hiring me in 2003 despite my little experience as a scrapbooker. My life has been forever changed. I scrapbook everything and have completed a doctorate about scrapbooking. I had no idea either of these things would ever be true about me. I thank every single person who volunteered for this study and shared their scrapbooks with me. Each of you provided valuable information and also inspired me to scrapbook in new ways. I am forever changed by each of you. Keep on scrapbooking. I thank my dissertation chair, Ralph LaRossa, for putting up with my procrastination, supporting this project, but most of all for giving me the idea that my work in a scrapbook store could turn into something as big as a dissertation. I still remember the day I told him I worked in a scrapbook store and the light bulb appeared above his head back in 2003 before I had committed to even continuing on for my doctorate.

8 I also thank my dissertation committee members, Wendy Simonds and Adia Harvey. I thank Wendy for challenging me to write a more convincing dissertation and correcting my many typographical errors. I thank Adia for joining my committee even though we did not know each other outside of this project. She challenged me to think about my topic in new and interesting ways. I want to thank my classmates and professors through my graduate school years that have read very early incarnations of this project and provided feedback and support. I also must thank my proofreaders: Kay Medley, Lindsey Medley, Rob Rath, and Wendy Rath.

9 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES v x xi 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION THE GROWTH OF SCRAPBOOKING 1.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON SCRAPBOOKING 1.3 SCRAPWORTHY LIVES 1.4 A NOTE ON TERMS 2 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 COGNITIVE SOCIOLOGY 2.2 SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 2.3 ETHNOMETHODOLOGY 3 CHAPTER 3: METHODS 3.1 SAMPLE 3.3 INTERVIEWS 3.4 GROUNDED THEORY METHODS 4 CHAPTER 4: THE SCRAPBOOKING THOUGHT COMMUNITY 4.1 SOURCES OF SCRAPBOOKING NORMS 4.2 SCRAPBOOKING NORMS 4.4 SCRAPBOOKING IS DEVIANT 4.5 SCRAPBOOKERS VIEW THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY 4.6 BECOMING A SCRAPBOOKER

10 5 CHAPTER 5: DOING GENDER, FAMILY, RACE, ETHNICITY, AND RELIGION 5.1 DOING GENDER 5.2 DOING FAMILY 5.3 DOING RACE AND ETHNICITY 5.4 DOING RELIGION 6 CHAPTER 6: SCRAPBOOKING AS A CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM 6.1 WHAT IS A SCRAPBOOK? 6.2 WHO ARE SCRAPBOOKERS? 6.3 WHERE DO YOU SCRAPBOOK? 6.4 HOW DO YOU SCRAPBOOK? 6.5 IS IT SCRAPWORTHY? BOUNDARIES BETWEEN HOBBY, HOME, AND WORK 7 CHAPTER 7: TIME 7.1 SPENDING TIME 7.2 THE SPEED OF TIME 8 CHAPTER 8: SOCIAL MEMORIES 8.1 CULTURAL CHANGES 8.2 COLLECTIVE FAMILY MEMORY 8.3 IMITATION AND REPLICATION 8.4 PERFECT MEMORIES 9 CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSIONS 9.1 IMPLICATIONS

11 9.2 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH FINAL THOUGHT REFERENCES APPENDICES 11.1 APPENDIX A. RECRUITMENT FLYERS 11.2 APPENDIX B. INFORMED CONSENT 11.3 APPENDIX C. PARENTAL PERMISSION 11.4 APPENDIX D. DEMOGRAPHIC SHEET 11.5 APPENDIX E. INTERVIEW GUIDES 11.6 APPENDIX F. DEMOGRAPHICS OF YOUR SCRAPBOOKS SURVEY 11.7 APPENDIX G. DEMOGRAPHICS OF YOUR SCRAPBOOKS RESULTS

12 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 3.1. WHERE RESPONDENTS WERE RECRUITED 41 TABLE 3.2. RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION OF RESPONDENTS TABLE A.1. NUMBER OF RESPONDENTS REPORTING SCRAPBOOKING THE FOLLOWING THEMES

13 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 2.1. SEMIOTIC SQUARE 24